Consensual Failure

What is life in not a series of failures and success, this blog is going to focus on those great moments of failure that help you in the long run. We’re talking about opportunities of a life time, moments of great growth, and every time you walk away begging for a redo, knowing one will not be given.

A wide range of anonymous professionals will be speaking on this blog. Each of them will share their own tale of woe.

With failure, information will be your consolation prize.

Failures in Film: It’s not in the Budget

Welcome to the Fail Whale corner. Let me start my asking, Who are you?

Heh, thanks for keeping this anonymous.

Fine be difficult. Tell me about where you were in the industry at this time?

I was just starting out as an independent producer and I was going to my first big studio pitch.

Sounds like an exciting time, give me a little background about the meeting.

My first feature script gained a little bit of traction. I mean a little bit, but at this point in my career it was a huge opportunity. This was the only studio willing to talk to me so I really needed to make it count.

Ooh that’s a lot of pressure how were you feeling?

I was equal parts panic and excitement. It was a crazy time, and I still can feel those jitters when I think back to it.

Now we know why you were there, how you were feeling, let’s hope on the fail.

Hahaha, thanks for that lead in…….. I walked into the office with my pitch package, a box of fancy cronuts and a pocket full of dreams.

Hah…. Pocket full of dreams really?

It’s called storytelling. I was in the waiting room, when the receptionist drops the first bomb on me, the man I was meeting with went out of town this morning, but I’d be able to have me meeting with the VP instead. It was Ok with me, because the meeting wasn’t canceled, I’m not quite as prepared to deal with him, but I wasn’t going in completely blind. Next she mentions that he won’t be ready for two hours. So I leave the cronuts there and go out to grab some food. Fast forward a bit and I’m back in the waiting room eagerly awaiting. A tall thin man enters the room introduces himself offers to take me on a little tour before we sit down to talk. As he is showing me around and offers me a cronut that one of his interns brought it.

Didn’t you bring the cronuts?

I did, but I was too intimidated to say anything, so I politely declined my cronut. I really wanted to say something because he couldn’t stop talking about how great it was of his intern to bring them in. We finish the tour at his office. That office was awesome, there were props in expertly crafted displays everywhere. I stood there in awe looking at the life that I’ve been dreaming about, even taking a minute to imagine it was my office. I’m pretty sure he caught me day dreaming for a second. He walked over to a pair of couches to “keep things informal.” At this moment I turned on my charm and pitched like I’ve never done before. I could see him becoming enthralled by my words and that encouraged me to get even more into my pitch. I was in my element, he even tried to stump me by asking an obscure question about the script, that I answered with out even skipping a beat. I could see from the look on his face he was blown away, and when I finished the VP actually smiled and complimented my pitch. I could tell it was just a matter of time before we struck up a deal.

Then it happened, he started his barrage of technical questions. The room froze, as I realized I…

You can’t say fucked…. This is an all ages interview.

You just said it?

I’m not going to play this game with you.

I was going to say messed up, I came in with a five-million-dollar budget. But that budget was based on other movies, it had nothing to do with actual figures. Needless to say he saw right through that after one question. That’s when it started to get bad, he started hammering me until my wonderful pitch was just a long lost memory. Everything I said just dug my grave a little deeper, and when I tried not saying anything he took that as me quitting “like a baby”. I was cursed out, told I was an amateur, and I had no right to be in this building. I tried to bring the conversation back to the script to remind him of the good times, but he wasn’t having any of it. I sat there for what felt like an eternity as he ripped into me about the budget and my lack of knowledge.

How long do you think the reaming lasted for?

I’d say around an hour of him telling me how much I suck and how I wasted his time, which was incredibly important to him. Which confused me because his rant took twice as long as my pitch. But as horrible as I felt in that moment, I was thankful he took the time to lay into me. That hour taught me so much about the industry and I will always be thankful to the VP for setting me straight.

You walked away feeling thankful?

Oh god no, I walked away devastated knowing that I’ll never be able to pitch him again. After sulking around as a sad sack for few days, I realized I would never be in this situation again, because of his anger and abuse I made it my mission to understand film financials on a much deeper level. That VP unknowingly kept my dream alive. Could you imagine if I had five meeting and everyone was nice about my lack of knowledge, I would just think they weren’t interested in my product, while unknowing destroying my career before it ever started. Sure it can be disheartening or earthshattering, but those lessons are priceless.

Any final words for our audience?

Thanks for having me and to everyone out there reading; remember failure sucks and it usually hurts, but if you take the time to understand what went wrong, it will be the reason you succeed.

Thank you for sharing your tale of failure, and thank you to all of our readers. Now get out there and fail for your future.